Huskies embark on road trip

NCAA BASEBALL REGIONAL TOURNAMENT: UCONN VS. WASHINGTON, FRIDAY, NOON (ESPN3)

The UConn baseball team needed 11 hours to get from Storrs to Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Wednesday. In other words, just another day on the road.

When the Huskies open Friday against Washington in the NCAA Tournament regional hosted by Coastal Carolina in Conway, S.C, they will have lefty Mason Feole on the mound and something only Wagner has more of in their back pocket. That’s 22 road wins.

Would it have been great for UConn to have hosted a regional at Dodd Stadium in Norwich? Absolutely. UConn has the No. 16 RPI ranking, so it had a good argument to be among the 16 hosts. There are no fewer than six baseball polls and the Huskies’ average rank is 21st, so the argument is far from foolproof.

Still, save two sites on the West Coast and one in Minnesota, 13 sites come no farther north than North Carolina.

“What I thought the

committee lost was that not only could we show off college baseball again to the state of Connecticut but to all of New England,” UConn coach Jim Penders said Thursday. “The last time we were at [Dodd in 2010] we had 6,000 people in the stadium. People crossing the median on I-395, because the bottleneck was so bad. I think they lost a chance to expand our game more nationally. And that’s a shame.”

Penders said that doesn’t mean Coastal Carolina, the No. 1 seed in the regional and No. 15 seed overall, didn’t deserve to be host.

“They do deserve it,” Penders said.

Coastal Carolina is 23-12 against teams in the top 100 RPI. UConn is 22-13-1. UConn won at Coastal Carolina in March, holding on to a 12-10 win after scoring seven runs in the first.

Washington is the No. 3 seed in the double-elimination Conway Regional. LIU Brooklyn is the No. 4 seed.

“I tell our guys all the time you don’t deserve anything until you earned it and in somebody else’s estimation we have not earned it,” Penders said. “We didn’t play very well in a professional ballpark [Dunkin’ Donuts in Hartford] that was called home games. We were 1-3. A professional ballpark 35 minutes from campus in Norwich, who knows how well we would have played. We played pretty well at J.O. Christian Field. I look forward to the day we can play those regional games [in a new facility] in Storrs.”

UConn won 10 of 16 away games against RPI Top 100. They are road tested.

“We just expect chaos,” Penders said.

The NCAA, Penders said, does not do business with Spirit Airlines, which has daily direct flights from Bradley to Myrtle Beach, S.C.

So the Huskies boarded a bus for Boston after practice Wednesday at 11:30 a.m., passed the Red Sox game and flew out of Logan to Charleston.

“Because of construction and there’s no real interstate, it took us three hours

to drive to Myrtle [about 10 miles from Coastal Carolina],” Penders said. “We had to stop for dinner. We finally got here at 10:30 p.m.”

It wasn’t the first adventure.

The Huskies spent an extra night in Wichita during the season because they couldn’t get enough players on a flight home past 6 p.m. on Sunday.

Scheduled to leave the next day at 6 a.m., the bus broke down and they missed their flight. They ended up going through Houston and getting home at 3 a.m. Tuesday.

“The kids aren’t kids,” Penders said. “They grew up this year. They’re resilient. They know how to adjust. They know weather also calls for adjustments.”

Like an 8:30 a.m. Sunday doubleheader at home when you don’t have lights after you have snow on Friday.

“At this point, they wear it as a badge of honor,” Penders said. “We always have that mojo we’re going to be tough today.”

Feole, named Thursday first team All-American by Collegiate Baseball and third team All-American pick by Baseball America, has built a 9-1 record with a 2.50 ERA. He has struck out 114 in 932⁄3 innings.

“When Mason is throwing strikes he’s really tough to beat,” Penders said. “I’m sure Washington will try to bunt for hits. Mason can struggle at times getting off the mound, so our athletic corner infielders will need to make quick decisions to help him.”

Washington starter Joe DeMers, who threw the first perfect game in school history this season, has induced twice as many ground outs as fly outs.

“He’s a really good power sinker pitcher,” Penders said. “Whatever you do don’t try to lift it, because you’ll hit into 6-3, 4-3 all day. It’s not going to be where you think it is when you start your swing. Stay short and direct to the ball and try to hit it back up the middle.

“They play on a slow surface infield in Washington. This is a much faster surface. We always emphasize line drives and ground balls, never talk about launch angle in our program. We hope the field rewards us.”

Penders